


Please, help me sleep

by CosmeerSpots



Series: Wondrous Wanders [4]
Category: Hollow Knight (Video Games)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Suicide, Wondrous Wanders AU, and Hornet helped out too, yeah they... they did the it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-29
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:29:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23914588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CosmeerSpots/pseuds/CosmeerSpots
Summary: Rest is for the weak and the worn out. So, when they awake in the morning, or perhaps another life, they may be stronger.
Series: Wondrous Wanders [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1681615
Comments: 24
Kudos: 119





	Please, help me sleep

Hornet has been tracking this one vessel for few days now.

Ever since she spotted them crawling around in Fungal Wastes, she’s been following them. She watched as they found the nail that now rests in their hands. She watched them run away from mantis warriors, fight against vicious beasts and expertly duck away from Ooma exploding cores when they popped their soft membranes in order to gain Soul. They weren’t combat focused. But their dodges earned her respect, in a way.

That doesn't mean she won't slice them apart.

Few times, already, she has tried to end their pointless journey. They are not strong enough, and never will be, to take Hallownest’s burden upon their little shoulders. They don't have it in them. There is no ire to fuel them, no determination to finish a task if second try comes fruitless. They would’ve been gone, impaled on the tip of her needle, have it not been for their quick dashes. The way they can just cloak themselves in the cloth of their cape and disappear into thin air has been Hornet’s biggest enemy so far.

It seems the hunt has come to an end, now, though.

In the last few days before this evening, they've been stumbling around a lot. Their agility has gone, leaving them to get injured by the mildest of Greenpath’s beasts. Their mask has cracked and chipped away, scratched by thorns deep enough that the scars probably wouldn't leave easily. She has even seen them fall into a pit of spikes at least twice. It was a pitiful display, but what startled her the most was a flash of orange in their empty eye sockets every now and then.

...Never had she seen a vessel become infected… Does this mean that the Hollow Knight is becoming even weaker? Did the god her sibling chains to their mind found some sort of passageway that connects void beings? ...Does something like that even exist?

No matter, no matter. Focus on the present. There’s a vessel that has to be dealt with.

See looks at them from her hiding spot close to the ceiling. They have taken to simply sitting, leaning against a big stone. Their exhales are ragged and loud. She can hear it even from here. It kinda scares her, to be honest. Whenever one of her siblings she was close with breathed like that, it meant trouble.

The small, well hidden part of her heart that craves the love and the unique feeling of being hidden away from the entire world by kindred soul begs her to rush and help them. Comfort the small sibling. Be their stone they can be sure won't break underneath their feet as they rest and recover. Hide them in her crimson cloak, so no hurt can get to them. Her red is better than the infinity of overwhelming colors of life.

But the larger part of her, the one that has been forged by so many loses, by the necessity to be unforgiving in this kingdom, tells her to strike them down. Make it quick, so they don't have to suffer anymore. It won't be hard, anyway. She doesn't know them as she did everyone else that left her life. Her soul is frosted over by the pain of loneliness. The iceberg encompassing her emotions won't let her mourn loss of unknown sibling. Apathy is the only thing she can give them.

She doesn't move for a while, trying to think of the best way to end their life. Her train of thoughts crashes abruptly, however, when the little vessel lifts their nail and presses the tip against their own chest. She watches them slightly curl in, their shoulders tense and shake. They start crying. Black tears mixed with the disgusting bright orange that haunts eyes of the dead and dreaming stream down their face as they force their hands to push the nail against their soft chitin.

She can’t turn away no matter how hard she tries to will herself to do so. Her gaze is glued to the scene. They don't have a voice. They can’t scream out their pain, yet she can hear them. Cold forces itself into her mind and she flinches away, hiding further in the leaves. She stays there, trying to get a grip on herself, till the cold melts away. Still, she hears the silence of their sobs, this time accompanied by desperation for an end.

She peeks out of the bushes just to see them leaning against the stone. They stopped pushing the nail into themselves. They are trembling _so much_. No wonder they ceased their attempts at escape from pain. They just simply can’t will their arms to move anymore. Maybe they don't have the power. Or the terror of dying got to them. After all, how horrifying it is to life, to be stomped out?

Her feet hit the ground as she makes her decision. Their head lolls so they can look at her. They start shaking more.

The needle she trusts with her life is light when she takes it off her back and stabs it into the ground. No. No, she isn't going to strike them down with it. But she feels like it should rest a bit away. Maybe to let them know she’s here to help them what they started. Would that put them to ease? To know she understands, in a way? Not that she cares. She feels only dull nothingness. Empty, as she kneels down next to them and gently puts her hands over theirs.

They shake their head before it dips so low she can’t see their face anymore. Their weeping and the press of their fear, their grief, intensifies. Her mental walls are too high to climb over and too strong to break through, though. They won't get to her.

Hornet shushes them as she pries their claws off the nail and takes it in her own. One of their hands clutch at the blade, seemingly not caring how it cuts into their palm. Not surprising. The other grips the arm she’s still holding the nail with. That's alright. She won't deny them that. There’s no real reason to. They don't have the power to bury their claws in her carapace, anyway. It’s safe, and, honestly, sad.

Her right hand moves to support their head. They press against it, finding comfort just in that small gesture, even though she hadn't intended it that way. That's whatever. If they want to see it as a sign of affection or of sympathy, so be it.

Her grip on the nail tightens. She inhales deeply before sighing. She’s not going to warn them, but she guesses that just the sigh is enough to tell them of their end.

With cold heart and empty eyes, with hand resting on the back of a head of soon-to-be-corpse, Hornet kills another one of her half siblings with their own weapon.

The weapon exits with a crack through their back and they give one violent shiver before they still almost completely. Another one gone, she thinks. That's good. In a way.

Backing off, she takes her needle from the ground, still watching the dead body. Their shade should appear soon enough and she really doesn't want to feel the unique agony of voided thorns sinking into chitin and flesh, searching for warmth and Soul. The few times she got hit in the past were more than enough. It is quite unlikely that this one wouldn’t attack her, with how much they prefered to run away than fight, but being sure is never bad.

She is right. Of course she is. The void particles rise out of their deceased body and slowly, so so slowly, start to form into a small ghost with two horns on each side of their face. For a moment, she thinks they will collapse on themselves sooner than the process of glueing their self will finish. They make it, though. And now they stare at her with giant white bright eyes. Right into her soul, right through her mind, probably reading her like a book.

They float closer. Her grip on the needle tightens and her posture becomes tense. She doesn't like slashing at the shades, no matter how deep in apathy she is drowning in. Cracking their shells open was a responsibility bestowed upon her by the king. He never said anything about the spirits, however. She rather not murder her siblings like that, but sometimes it has to be done. So she, herself could keep on living.

The shade makes no move that would indicate an attack, though. So she lets herself relax maybe just a bit and have a staring contest with the phantom.

Neither of them moves for couple of minutes. Each searches the other, thinks, waits. The shade is first one to move. They duck their head down and start crying- she didn't know the shades could do that- except she can’t feel any sadness radiating off of them. Tears of happiness?

She looks over at their corpse. At the deep ugly cracks. At the orange seeping out of the empty eye sockets and the small hole in their forehead where a piece of mask went missing days ago. She guesses that, in a grim, dark sense, dying by your own hand is better than becoming a slave of dreams.

Oh, how terrible has the world become…

Small incomprehensible whispers of void catch her attention and she looks at the shade again. It spins around playfully, overjoyed at being free of hurting. How lucky it is. She thinks, but can’t bring herself to be bitter about it. Happiness is so rare to see nowadays, even the slightest sign of glee chips at her walls of apathy enough to make small smile appear on her face. It’s like watching a long captive wild Maskfly being set free again.

The shade stops their display just for them to bow deep for her. Her smile disappears just as quickly as it came, because nobody should see her like that. Hornet makes no movement to acknowledge their thankfulness, but it appears they didn't expect anything else.

They look at her one last time before diving into the ground, disappearing. She won't see them ever again. Hopefully. Killing a vessel twice is not something she'd like to exactly do.

Her needle finds its way to her back and she kneels down once more. To right the body, so it would lean against the stone. So it would look as if the little thing is just resting, as if it would spring back to its legs any time now, ready to continue its endless journey.

The body of an impaled sibling sleeps, cushioned by leaves and flowers of overgrowing Greenpath. The corpse’s sister walks away, leaving it in care of calm slumber, decay and death.

**Author's Note:**

> So this might have been done ten thousand times and Im p sure we all share this hc at least a tiny bit, but yknow, variety is nice as far as I know. If there is anything youd like me to tag, please tell me in comments,,
> 
> Also my sis told me, and I quote word to word, "pics in fics guut, keep pics in fics", so I guess Ill try to do smol thingies for some of em? We will see how thatll go


End file.
